Donor organ tells a story about Anglo Boer War

Made in Brattleboro, Virginia, US, presumably in the 19th century, the organ is currently in the possession of a fourth-generation heir living in Germiston who has entrusted it for valuation and sale to Heritage Watch, the artifact awareness project of Consolidated Auction Group.

Trudie Pienaar says that the organ originally belonged to her great-great maternal grandmother who she only knows as a Mrs Potgieter. Pienaar picks up the story: “During the war they hid the organ in a cave to prevent its destruction at the hands of British troops. They moved from farm to farm and set fire to the homesteads of people suspected of harbouring and supporting Boer fighters. Ironically enough the troops came and went, without torching the farm.”

Pienaar recalls that her great-grandmother lived in the area of Ficksburg, and that her grandmother, Theodorus Louis ‘Dorie’ van den Bergh, who inherited the organ, lived in Steunsrus in the Free State.

It was later passed on to Pienaar’s own mother, Cornelia Margaretha Catharina Pienaar who, along with her daughter, has now decided it’s time to let go of the organ as there isn’t a fifth female heir on the original owner’s side of the family.